Prof MM van Wyk between all the participants who attended his workshop

As part of the capacity building endeavours in the College of Education, the Department of Graduate Studies have identified 22 colleagues who need support with academic writing skills for publications. Prof MM van Wyk, from Curriculum and Instructional Studies, initiated an academic support series. He plans to present five workshops to address various topics such as abstract writing, literature reviews, research methodologies and critical reading skills to analyse journal articles. The aim is to empower the colleagues to produce and publish one article in an accredited journal for 2013. On 30 April he presented a workshop about literature review and theoretical frameworks to seventeen of these colleagues.

Ms Luxie(GK)Mokwena

Gladys Kedibone Mokwena, popularly known as ‘Luxie’, joined Unisa as a lecturer in January 2013 in the Department of ABET and Youth Development. Her research interests lie in the ABET curriculum, in adult literacy, educator and learner support, in women empowerment and income generating projects. Her involvements in adult literacy campaigns included Ithuteng, Unisa-SANLI and Kha Ri Gude. She says she knows the hardships of poverty and has committed herself to serving the marginalised in our communities with passion and commitment. For her pastoral role she cares for and supports people living with HIV and AIDS and has initiated food gardens and beadwork training projects to encourage learners to support themselves. She strongly believes that by providing skills training through an integrated education and training approach, ABET can make an invaluable contribution to the personal, social and economic development of individuals and our society.

Ms Mokwena’s experiences as a teacher date back as far as 1977. She trained as a primary and high school teacher holding a BA, H Ed and B Ed(general) at Unisa, so she also is an Alumni of Unisa. In 1995 she decided to switch to Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET), the education and training program for adults and youth with little or no formal qualifications. She knew she was venturing into new territory and she found the experience unnerving to say the least. To be better prepared for her new duties, she did another Bachelor of Education (B Ed) focused on the area of adult education and also completed a Master of Education (M Ed), these were both obtained at the University of the Witwatersrand. Prior to assuming a lecturing post at Unisa, she worked for the Department of Education as the ABET Senior Education Specialist and was appointed as an examiner in Travel and Tourism learning area of the ABET qualification as endorsed by the Department of Higher Education and Training.

Ms Lineo Johnson joined the Adult Basic Education & Training (ABET) and Youth Development in January 2013 as a lecturer. She holds a B Ed, Hons and M Ed in Adult Education from Wits. Before joining Unisa, she was studying for her doctoral degree and was also engaged as a Research Assistant with the School of Social Sciences, as well as tutoring in Sociology at Wits. She worked as an adult education practitioner for past 30 years mostly in Lesotho, where she completed her undergraduate degree in Adult Education with the National University of Lesotho (NUL) and also worked as a lecturer there.

Ms Lineo Johnson

She has also worked with various research consultancy agencies, community-funded projects and international NGOs – European Union, Irish Aid, CARE-International and Lesotho Highlands Water Project. Her areas of expertise are teaching and learning, community development, research and sociology of adult education. Ms Johnson says she is too old for a specific hobby but she loves life and is in good health. So far she is enjoying her work and studies at Unisa.

Dr BA Segoe

Dr Bobo Segoe of the Department of Curriculum and Instructional Studies was awarded his doctoral degree on 22 April 2013. His thesis, Learner support in the provision of teaching programmes for under-qualified teachers acknowledges that, although there are different kinds of learner support structures in distance education, registration support, learner support services, contact lessons, technological support and feedback strategies are very critical.

Supported by empirical data, this study seeks to argue that instructional designers and tutors in distance education spheres, need to ensure that quality learning support as learning environments should be designed according to the principles of resource-based and independent learning.“ In sustainable learning environment, support must be designed according to the principles that ensure that distance education learners progress from teacher-directed activity to self-regulated activity”. It is hoped that this piece of work will help to promote more discussions and debates about the use of learner support services in distance education institutions throughout the globe.

Professor Kesh Mohangi

Professor Kesh Mohangi started as an associate Professor at the Department of Psychology of Education on 1 January 2013. She is an Educational Psychologist who is registered with the HPCSA and has previously worked at the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Pretoria. Currently she is involved in teaching and learning related to the following programmes:
- Undergraduate module: ETH102L- The Learning Child
- BEd (Hon) (School Guidance & Counselling)
- MEd (Guidance & Counselling)
- Masters & Doctorate Research Supervision
Her research interests are in child and adolescent psychology, in childhood HIV and AIDS and caregiver support, and in the field of Educational Psychology: Assessment and Intervention. Her expertise lies within qualitative research methodology in particular, participatory research methods with children.

Dr Lynn Preston

Dr Lynn Preston joined the Department of Educational Psychology on 1 February 2013. She is working with the B Ed Hons and M Ed guidance and counselling students. She was working in her own private practise before with trauma as her area of specialisation. She enjoys helping people to cope better after a stressful event. She is the proud mum of her two children, Jessica Lynn (22) and Malcolm (26)

Dr Connie Haasbroek

Dr Connie (CP) Haasbroek joined Unisa in February 2013 as a senior lecturer in the Department Psychology of Education, College of Education. Connie began her career as a nurse in the Psychiatric Unit of 1 Military Hospital in 1982 after she completed her BCur degree at University of Pretoria.  She continued her post graduate studies and completed her BA Hons (Psychology) after hours.  She joined the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) in 1986 and worked at the Centre for child and adult guidance in the Institute for Psychological and Edumetric Research. By means of part time studies she later completed a degree Magister Artium in Psychology with University of Pretoria in 1995, with a dissertation focused on the emotional and autonomy needs of adolescents.

Other highlights of her HSRC career were her involvement in education and policy implementation studies and school reform initiatives, centred on topics such as discipline in schools and programme evaluation and policy implementation studies. In 2000 she was retrenched by the HSRC and went onto work as a mental health care practitioner and consultant on a part time basis.  During this time she initiated a student support centre at the Centurion College and served on the Gauteng Province Mental Health Review Board. She again studied at the University of Johannesburg from 2003 – 2006 and completed her Doctor Educationis degree with a thesis on “Mental health strategies for developing institutional effectiveness in college”.

Connie enjoys nature and has a passion for animals.  She has a small zoo at home and is surrounded with dogs, parrots and fish.  She loves rehabilitating rescue animals and the newest additional to the family is one rescued blue fronted Amazone parrot (Nicci) and two Basenji X puppies adopted from Wetnose (Tshwaro and Thumi).

Dr Maynard van Breda

Dr Maynard van Breda has been appointed as a senior lecturer in the Department of Psychology of Education as from 1 February 2013. He previously worked in the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) at high school level for seventeen years, which included a five year stint as a part time ABET teacher. In 2001 he was appointed as a psychologist in the employ of the WCED and rendered various psycho-educational services in two Education Districts in Cape Town until the end of 2012. During the past six years Dr van Breda has worked as a part-time examiner in the Departments of Psychology of Education at the universities of Stellenbosch and UNISA. 

Dr van Breda’s areas of specialisation and research interests include – bio-ecological approaches to educational and psychological assessment within the framework of Inclusive Education, learning support, adolescent behavioural and emotional challenges, school truancy and dropout prevention, rural education as well as career guidance. Besides his involvement in the academic domain, Dr van Breda has a keen interest in and is passionate about engaging in community developmental and supportive projects which focus on among other – school based support, parental guidance, family relationships, effective communication and conflict management.

Dr J Nyoni and Prof KP Dzvimbo

The degree of Doctor of Education (D Ed) was awarded to Jabulani Nyoni for his thesis entitled Discourses of Multicultural Teams:  Implications for Policy Practice in Open and Distance Learning. Jabulani Nyoni, through the analysis of the views and experiences of practising open and distance learning (ODL) multicultural academic lecturers, he investigates the formation of communities of practice (CoPs) in line with the institutional team approach (TA) framework for curriculum and learning development at Unisa.  He proposes a post- (de)colonisation model to assist postcolonial transitional higher education institutions in overcoming the colonised modernity and the ambivalence of dualistic racism, and reconstructing a new way of coexistence given South Africa’s multicultural context. Prof KP Dzvimbo was his Supervisor. 

In her thesis entitled “An Investigation of the Challenges Affecting Teachers’ Classroom Assessment Practices”, Mantsose Jane Sethusha investigates the challenges affecting teachers’ classroom assessment practices and explored how these challenges influence effective teaching and learning. She adopted a qualitative instrumental case study approach and used semi-structured interviews, observations, and document analyses in the investigation. Her study utilized the conceptual framework based on the model suggested by Hargreaves, Earl and Schmidt (2002) in which four perspectives – technological, cultural, political and postmodern were outlined with the intention of accounting for teachers’ assessment practices.

Dr MJ Sethusha, Prof KP Dzvimbo and Dr J Nyoni

The data collected allowed her to map out the different challenges encountered by teachers in their classroom assessment practices. Major challenges that emanated from this study were policy interpretation, overcrowding, support, parental involvement, moderation mechanisms (internal and external), assessment planning, implementation and communication as well as lack of resources. Prof MW Lumadi was her supervisor.

Prof MD Magano

Professor Meahabo Dinah Magano has been appointed as an associate professor in the Department of Inclusive Education as from 1 December 2012. Previously she has spent twenty-two years in education at high school level. Thereafter she joined Heinemann Publishing Company as a National Manager for two years. She then decided to come to academia in 2007 where she was appointed as a senior lecturer at the University of Johannesburg. Her area of specialization is Psychology of Education and her passion is in teacher education. Prof Magano’s research interests are located in teacher development, wellness and conversations that enhance wellness dimensions. At the University of Johannesburg she was involved in the ACE, BEd, BEd Honours and supervised both Master’s and Doctoral students.

She is currently leading a team which is researching on the professional development of prison educators and the wellness of juvenile offenders. The team has researchers from other universities and includes her Master’s and Doctoral students in the field of Inclusive Education at UNISA. She is currently responsible for the module MEDSN1A. Professor Magano co- authored a book called Learning Conversations and contributed a case study in a book called Becoming a teacher. The articles that she published in accredited journals are based on wellness dimensions amongst educators, learners and students in Higher Education. She is currently leading Community Engagement activities in the Department of Inclusive Education and the focus is mainly on prison education which is her own initiative. Other than prison education, the community engagement activities that she is leading in the department include special schools. She is also supporting a full service school in Diepsloot where she assists Life Orientation teachers.

Apart from academia Prof Magano is very passionate about community outreach projects in Ga-Rankuwa and Atteridgeville where wellness dimensions of adults and youths are promoted. Prof Magano’s vision at UNISA is to ensure that she contributes meaningfully in the department and college level and that her research focus on prison education broadens the scope of Inclusive Education.

Alewani Mudau, Sindile Mokiwa, Dr Matseliso Mokhele (Organiser) and Dan Tlale

CEDU colleagues have a “brown bag” or “Get it, write” tradition where they reach out a helping hand to each other when it comes to their academic persuits. This is where colleagues who are working on their M- or D-degrees, present their findings and progress to their colleagues (often over lunch time, hence the brown bag connotation). They get valuable pointers and response from colleagues who have experience.

Its a great help and keeps colleagues motivated with their thesis writing. In February Alewani Mudau, Sindile Mokiwa and Dan Tlale had a turn while Dr Matseliso Mokhele managed the procedings.